


i wear your dearest fears beyond their ceaselessness

by witheredsong



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Longing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-12
Updated: 2015-09-12
Packaged: 2018-04-20 10:34:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4784192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/witheredsong/pseuds/witheredsong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn't know how to mend broken things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i wear your dearest fears beyond their ceaselessness

This is a disaster, he thinks on the plane. This groin hernia has come at the worst time. His entire career can be mapped in a sequence of injuries and unfulfilled potential. The bitter taste in his mouth does not abate even with the orange juice the sweet-faced stewardess brings him. But Roman will heal me, he thinks resolutely. Everything will be fine, he promises himself, ignoring the months of separation, of missed telephone calls and almost-angry words.

 

He opens the door and quietly steps into his old house. The furniture is covered in white sheets, the air is stale and dry, his footsteps ring on the floor. He wearily climbs the stairs, hand on the wood banister for support, smudges of prints left, knees creaking, exhausted. Up, up, up into that room where it began with a kiss.

 

He walks in, sees the half empty rows of books, the air thicker here, choking him, so he carefully opens a window. Sunshine streams in, air, dust motes dance in the beams of light. He removes the covering from a large picture, and there they are, together, frozen in time. His own face is reflected on the glass of the frame, lines around his eyes, mouth tight in a thin line, threads of silver in longer hair. He looks at himself like looking at a stranger, watches the white knuckles of his fists, watches with detached wonder at the tears that spill from his eyes, pool at the corners of his lips. The summer outside is wrong, he thinks tiredly. I spit upon the face of time that has transfigured me.

 

Roman’s eyes are infinitely less troubled than the last time Pablo saw him. He is on the floor of the living room, playing with his daughter, and the scene pierces Pablo with something like despair. He accepts for the first time that Roman is home for good, he is never returning to Spain.

 

Roman sees him standing in his doorway, and he stands up with the baby on his hip, gives Pablo a half-embrace even as he turns to hand the baby over to her mother. Pablo feels as if he is intruding, and that strange feeling of being unwanted intensifies. It doesn’t lessen when Roman takes him out to a bar instead of letting them sit together in the familiar old couch in the study watching television, the sounds of Roman’s loud large family filtering through the walls, while the smells of asado cooking in the kitchen wafting in makes their mouth water. That is familiar and old and safe, now it seems that Roman just wants to keep his past and present strictly separate.

 

Pablo can’t help but feel that he is the past, done with, for Roman.

 

He has always competed with Roman for a spot on the team. To compete for his affection, which he has always taken for granted, and which Roman has always unstintingly showered on him, is new and unpleasant and heart-rending.

 

The afternoon gets progressively worse, because none of them are good at meaningless chitchat. A sense of desperation envelops Pablo like a hair shirt, as Roman seems to slip farther and farther away from him.

 

Now that they are near, the distance between them is so vast it seems unsurpassable. Pablo can hardly bear to look at him.

 

On the way back, they stop for a while in the Plaza de Mayo. Someone calls Roman on his cell, and his face brightens as he takes the call. He laughs at something the caller says, and Pablo almost hates him, fiercely, then.

 

Roman is still smiling after the call has ended. “It was Martin”, he informs Pablo, a hand lightly placed on his shoulder, though, to Pablo, it feels like a brand searing him.

 

Something dark claws at Pablo.

 

He tries to say it jokingly, make light of this one thought that has battered against the bars of his heart for too long. The sky is dimming to a quiet dusk; the wind susurrates in the trees like lost voices speaking in whispers. Roman is looking at him, steadily, his hand still on Pablo’s shoulder, warm and heavy. Pablo’s voice breaks, surprising him, as he says, aching deep inside, “You laugh with him.”

 

He meant it to be a joke, but he knows it is not. It is accusing, a child’s plaintive complaint and by the lowering of Roman’s brows he knows Roman takes it as such. He knows he has hurt Roman, but there is defiance in his heart. He is well acquainted with the art of loss. To lose Roman’s laughter, which once belonged to him, wounded him, still wounds him, with unspeakable cruelty. If this means he loses Roman, well, it is just one more hurt. So many wounds are still green, why should he worry about a new stigmata?

 

The perfume of the jacaranda threads the air with loss. The few remaining women, kin of the “disappeared” melt away into the twilight, leaving behind their fierce waiting, and in Pablo’s mind, their sad proud dark eyes, holding onto the threadbare vestiges of hope. He shivers, as the air grows cool. Roman is still standing close, his fingers now tightly clasped in font of him, clenching perplexedly, the look of surprise and comprehension stark on his somber face.

 

He leans in close, and his hand comes up to Pablo’s hair, and that touch brings a lump to Pablo’s throat, it feels like betrayal. Roman probably anticipates his instinctive jerking back, probably, though it does nothing to assuage the raw hurt on his face.

 

Roman says carefully, “Pablito, what do you want me to say? I can’t seem to understand you at all. I know you want me to be happy. So what is this?”

 

Pablo feels a stinging in his eyes. Yes. Yes he wants Roman to be happy. But not without him. It is an unfair thing to want, maybe, but it seems that they lose each other almost as soon as they find each other, and this thread between them has stretched to breaking point already.

 

This feels like a final loss. 

 

He is no longer nineteen, they are no longer young. Maybe it is time to let go. “Nothing, Roman. I am sorry. Don’t mind me”, he says in a reasonably steady voice, the dusk hiding his face from Roman. Even his smile feels natural enough, even though there is a cruel savage grief tearing him inside. He wants to go back to Zaragoza, never come back to Buenos Aires, to Roman, again.

 

Roman is far from convinced though, he can see from the stubborn cast to his jaw. He tries again.

 

“Roman, I am just tired and out of sorts, and this stupid operation I’ll have to go through. I truly want you to be happy. And it’s good Martin makes you laugh, really. I…”.

 

His words are suddenly halted though. Roman is truly angry now. Pablo wonders at how and when they become so good at reading each other’s half-truths.

 

“I can’t bear it when you lie Pablo.” Roman is furious, and cold as ice. “You know it was difficult for me in Villarreal. I wanted to come home.”

 

Pablo wants to shout, “But what about me? Do you know how scared I am? This country took your brother Roman, remember? If someone takes you, then what? I miss you like I have lost my lungs, like I have lost my right foot.”

 

He is feeling hysterical and scattered, the hinges of his heart feel broken and he wants this stupid conversation to stop right now. It is his own fault. He should never have come to see Roman. Now he’s tired and upset and in pain, facing another career-threatening surgery, and each time that happens again, it is a bit more difficult to come back.

 

And now, Roman is furious with him.

 

“I’ll go”, he offers. “I don’t think this was a good idea. You have other commitments now and this journey has probably just aggravated my injury….”.

 

Roman quietly pulls him back, the anger replaced by a frantic worry, “Are you hurting? Why didn’t you tell me, we shouldn’t have walked this far”, as his hands, infinitely gentle move restlessly over Pablo’s stomach and hips, soothing the pain.

 

Pablo exhales tiredly. He closes his eyes.

 

Roman’s hands slowly still their gentle touches and Pablo is pulled closer to him, the warmth from Roman’s body seeping into his chilled one. He links his fingers around Roman’s waist, under Roman’s jacket, and steps closer into the embrace, lays his head on Roman’s shoulder, feeling calm as the tension drains out of both of them.

 

Somewhere the cicadas are singing in the dark. He feels vitally renewed.

 

Roman sighs into his hair, the moist puffs of air near Pablo’s ear as he says, “Tell me the truth, now.”

 

Pablo turns and presses a kiss to Roman’s shoulder. “I missed you.” He says. Roman’s hand drops from his hair to cup the back of his head, and then he is looking up into Roman’s clear, unhappy eyes. “And?”, Roman prompts. Pablo can feel himself growing warm under the gaze, but he has to say this. “I was upset. You laughed so much with Martin and the others. I thought maybe they were better friends. I never made you laugh so much Roman. I thought, I never made you so happy. ” The hurt is slow to surface when Roman is looking at him so intently, so patiently, but it is there, a jagged sore edge of agony.

 

Roman cradles him back against himself and Pablo thinks how strange they must look, two men in an embrace in the darkened, silent plaza under the trees laden with blue-purple flowers. He feels at peace, cleansed.

 

Roman is speaking, Pablo’s ear is at his heart. “With you, I can be happy in silence.”, maybe that is what he says. “Come home with me”, Roman tells him, and they walk home through the graffitied streets, arms around each other’s waist, negotiating their own, complicated, intricate tango.

 

Silence blossoms around them like the words, like the worlds of love.

 

Maybe for now, that is enough.


End file.
